


Thank you, Thomas the Tank Engine

by Miss_Cosmonaut



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow series - Gemma T. Leslie
Genre: Also baz is the gayest, Alternate Universe - Parents, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Family Feels, M/M, Normal AU, One Shot, a smol gay bean, also the two gay beans have a child, and simon is also a gay bean, my gay bean, my two gay beans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:57:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5604091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Cosmonaut/pseuds/Miss_Cosmonaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Can you fix her sweater?"<br/>"No, I'm going to fix all of - " He flails a hand over her little bird-boned body. "This. Whatever this is."<br/>"Our child!?"  <br/>"No, this outfit, Snow! She looks homeless."<br/>"Did you just say 'outfit'!? You're late! We're late! No time for color coordination!"<br/>He grabs my chin, pulls me close. Boy and bergamot and sleep. I want to dive into his skin.<br/>"There is always time for color coordination," he breathes.</p><p>- </p><p>Or, a realistic depiction of a Monday morning in the perfectly chaotic, chaotically perfect Snow-Pitch household. (Also, fuck Thomas the Tank Engine.)(And Cherry's a sleepy little sugar plum fairy.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thank you, Thomas the Tank Engine

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hi yes this is me procrastinating when I should actually be working on Love and Other Lovely Little Violent Things...but I have so many domestic Snowbaz AU scenes stuck in my head. It's trash central up there. I needed some fluffy crack. So here, have some fluffy crack. Because aren't these two just the cutest things in existence killmenow.
> 
> Baz is definitely not a morning person, Simon turns into the "D A D" when he's under too much pressure, and the two of them are just the gayest <3
> 
> (Not betad.)

 

_7:23 am._

_Christ._

_Fuck._

"Baz, wake up!" I'm on him in a beat, his face between my hands, his waist between my legs. I jerk him back and forth, turn the bed into an earthquake.

Nothing.

I slam my forehead against his, whisper his name with our noses squishing. He still smells like sleep and stars and pillow cases. If it were up to me, I'd let him sleep until the ends of time. He was made for sleeping. He was made for bed sheets. He was bloody made for wearing these banana printed pajamas I gave him for Christmas.

"Mmmf…" he grumbles into my fingers yanking at his mouth, his teeth gliding against my skin. Angry puppy teeth.

"Baz, wake up! We're late! Wake up!" I mush his face between my fingers, watch his skin go pink like he's leaking love potion. I yank at his eyebrows, his cheeks, the tip of his ears, the edge of his chin. I'm two seconds short from biting his nose when he grumbles and clutches my waist, pulls me close, pulls me in. And then he's rolling me back into the mattress, holding, pressing, swallowing me whole, and I wish, I wish, I wish today wasn't Monday. His heartbeat's all sleepy-steady. Like a lullaby.

Seriously, fuck Mondays.  

"Baz, let me go! We need to - "

"Mhh…quiet…" He holds me tighter, his mouth in my hair, kissing right into my head, breathing the haste away. I wonder if I smell like him.

_No._

"We're late! Get off! It's Monday!" I pound my fists into his chest, but it just makes me want to curl up into that little notch beneath his rib cage - that special place just for me, solely mine, completely mine - wrap him around my skin like a blanket.

_No, no, no._

"We forgot to set the alarm! Let go!" I'm shouting now, squirming closer, until my mouth fights its way between the collar of his pajama shirt and his skin. His shoulder there, curved smooth, warm against my teeth, my tongue. Heady.

I bite. He jerks. I huff. He shoves me off the bed. I hit the floor with a sound that I am not proud of. I grip my shoulder. Aching.

"Simon, what the fu - "

"We're late! Get up! It's 7:30!" I kick the mattress so hard the impact splits my foot in half.

"What are you kicking the bed for, you moron!" He rolls across the sheets, fists digging into his eyes like he's trying to squeeze the sleep straight out of his skull.

Baz is the exact opposite of a morning person. 

"We're late, _pookie pookerson_ ," I say, smiling. He throws a pillow at me. But I'm too busy rubbing my shoulder to dodge it.

I knew we should've gotten a carpet. I'm done with being shoved onto the floor. I'll choose rug burns over splinters any time. Especially now. Because we're late. Again. Like always.  

Monday mornings force me to realize we are the number one target of the cosmos.

"Don't ever call me that!" Baz shouts from where's he's stumbling towards the bathroom, hands yanking his pajamas off and onto the floor.

My legs are ready to dart into the living room, but my brain's busy thinking about how Baz was made for wearing banana printed pajamas. And how he was also made for wearing nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just skin. His skin. I want to bury myself in it.

"Simon, get ready. You were the one who bit me awake." His pajama bottoms come hurling into my face. I rip them off, crunch the material in my hands, stare at the bananas and their faces. Happy faces and frowny faces. Bananas with faces. It's been a year, and they're still bloody brilliant.

"Simon, move. Go fetch Cherry."

“You know, why don’t we just officially change her name? I mean, like, I  - Who in the world has called her Camille since she’s been with us? Nobody. Except - maybe your sister. Because she thinks Cherry's a stripper name. Which, yes, might be a little true, but that doesn't mean - I mean, I - Honestly, it's too late! Cherry reacts to _Cherry_. She doesn’t even acknowledge Camille! Like, I’ll say ‘Camille’, and she’ll stare at me like I’m a pod person. A pod person, Baz! We need to have a serious conversation about her name! Because we - “

“Can we please talk about this when one of us isn't completely naked?”

"Actually, can we please talk about it when both of us are - because that sounds bloody fantastic."

" _Simon_."

" _Baz_."

"Not the time."

"Fine."

I look up just in time to watch him stumble towards the shower. He slips on the bathroom mat, limbs getting tangled in the shower curtains. I flinch.

_Here we go._

"I hate this stupid bloody fucking bathroom mat! I'm throwing it out. I swear I'm throwing it out! Out! And I know I said it yesterday. But I'm going to do it. Honestly, it's dead to me! I'm throwing it out!" He wheezes, chest all blotchy red. He's staring down at the mat as if its mere existence is offending him personally. 

It’s adorable. 

There's this very real moment where I think I might tackle him right here, right now, love him to the moon and back - on that stupid bloody fucking bathroom mat. And then in the shower. And then on the bedroom floor. Screw the splinters.

"And it's barely 7:25. Not 7:30. Stop dramatizing," he shouts after me.

"Oh, I'm the dramatic one?" I shout back, as I storm into the living room, stumbling over the pillow fort we were too tired to dismantle after last night's Thomas the Tank Engine marathon. We watched until we catapulted way past Cherry's bedtime. She's a die-hard fan. And she will do anything to stay up late to watch: eyelash-batting and cuddling and eskimo kisses and _pretty, pretty please with whip cream on top._

Fuck Thomas. Because now we're late. And it's all his fault. Seriously, fuck Thomas.

I rip the door open to Cherry's bedroom, the paintings stuck to it bustling in the grip of the butterfly stickers. She's burrowed into her sheets, nothing but her dark curls spilling over and out. The curtains jerk as I slam the door against the wall, whisking back to flash a bit of early morning baby blue.

"Cherry, darling, you’ve got to get up." I dribble across the minefield of a floor, her fuzzy carpet soothing the ache in my foot. Cherry's room is my favorite in the whole apartment. It's like being inside of a giant treasure chest, with nooks and crannies and tinkers and toys, things that come to life when you turn your back. A never ending Mad Hatter's tea party in pastels.

I don't let her come up for air before I shove her sheets down and haul her into my arms. It takes an army of a million thunderstorms to wake this one up. It's so much worse than with Baz. When she closes her eyes, she locks herself in her head, crunches into her skin, and she won't come out unless it's her own idea.

"Unngh…dad…" she mumbles, voice like the ring of a tiny hand bell. I rub my fingers through her blob of curls and wipe the drool off her little mouth. She scrunches her eyebrows, something close to a quirk. I keep telling Baz she'll be cocking them like a villain by the time she's seven.

She bats my hands off and keeps grumbling, eyes still shut. I pinch her freckled cheeks, kiss her forehead. She gnaws at my fingers.

Baz says it's a phase. But I know she'll be a biter forever. Just like him. Or maybe like me. We're teaching her things without even realizing it. It's terrifying.

"Come on, darling," I say, as I rush over to her closet and settle her onto the floor. Where she stands for two seconds. Before sitting down. And falling over - _plop_ \- against her doll house. A pigtailed doll falls out of the bathroom on the second floor, hits the fuzzy carpet, empty eyes, arms apart, dress splayed. Plastic snow angel.

"Cherry, come on. No sleeping, darling. Come on, we need to get going. You've got school, and your dad's orchestra is meeting that new conductor. So we need to get you dressed really, really quickly. Can you do that for me?" I kick the doll to the side before I step on it. Everybody warns you about Lego blocks. But nobody warns you about doll feet. Nobody. They're so much tinier. So much more lethal.

"Dun..wan…" she mumbles.

I sigh. She sighs. I sigh louder. She sighs so loud I'm incapable of outdoing her. 

I stuff her into anything I can get her into without needing her to move on her own. I don't have time to find her matching socks before I pick her up and haul her into the kitchen. I run my fingers through her curls hoping I can I can tame them into something that looks like less of a disaster. Penny likes to call it a mad scientist hairdo.

Cherry's hair is the worst kind of uncooperative.  

"What in the world is she wearing?" Baz says. He's trying to get the malfunctioning coffee machine to work while drying his hair with a dishcloth. He's probably too tired to be aware of the fact that it's a dishcloth. A used dishcloth.

"Clothes, Baz."   

"She looks like she dressed herself. With her eyes closed. And, Christ, her sweater's backwards, Simon. And her socks aren't the same color," he points out, and then finally, the long awaited eye-brow-cock yanking at his forehead.

I sigh and press Cherry into his arms. Baz kisses her cheek. I kiss his forehead. He still smells like sleep.

"That's a dishcloth," I whisper and press a smile onto his mouth. He tastes like sleep, too. And Baz. Heavy, heady, bergamot and boyish. Always boyish. Even now. I kiss his chin, his nose. Back to his mouth, stubble tickling. Cherry hits a limp fist against my chest.

"Okay, okay. I'm stopping." I flick her quirk of a nose. "And Baz, love, that's still a dishcloth."

It takes him a while to stop rubbing his hair into a catastrophe. He yanks the cloth off, stares at it. Before groaning and throwing it onto the floor. I want to kiss him stupid.

"I'll get you a towel," I say. "Can you fix her sweater?"

Baz jerks, shaking his head like he just woke up from dozing with his eyes open. He groans.

"No, I'm going to fix all of - " He flails a hand over her little bird-boned body. "This. Whatever this is."

"Our _child_!?"  

"No, this outfit, Snow! She looks homeless."

"Did you just say 'outfit'? You're late! We're late! No time for color coordination!" I whip my hands above my head and hit my elbow on the edge of an open cupboard. " _Ah_ \- Come on! Jesus fu - "

Baz reaches out and rubs his fingers across my elbow, his skin making the ache numb. And then his hand leaves my arm, and he grabs my chin, pulls me close. Boy and bergamot and sleep. 

"There is always time for color coordination," he breathes.

I whip my way out of his grip.

"Right now is not the time for super gay. Forget the coffee, Baz. Forget the clothes. Let's go!" I can't stop flailing. I'm a piece of silly string in a windstorm.

Baz presses his hands against Cherry's ears, and I know he's going to whip out the F-bomb. Cherry's eyes are closed, saliva dribbling down her pink-stained chin.

"Super fucking gay?" he hisses. And he cocks both of his eyebrows. Both of them. It's terrifying. He squeezes his way past me and makes his way towards her room. He's smiling like a criminal.

"Do not walk into that room, Basilton. She is going to school like this. We need to go. Now."

"Over my dead body."

"Fine. If she's late again, then this time it's your fault."

"My fault? You're the one who forgot to set the alarm."

"When did I ever agree on being the one to set the alarm? I am the most disorganized human being on earth! Why did you think letting me be responsible for time management was ever going to be a good idea? Because it's a terrible idea!"

"Oh, I don't know, Simon? Maybe because the alarm is on your side of the bloody bed?"

"You put it there. Because you said it was more aesthetically pleasing."

"Simon. Darling. She is not going to school like this." Nostrils flaring. Hair a catastrophe. Nail-gun-sledgehammer-gut-punch-stare.

And with that, he marches into Cherry's bedroom. I groan so loud the ceiling shudders.

"Fine!" I say. "Go ahead and make a terrible impression on that new conductor! And we're going to be the 'late parents' for the second year in a row!"

"Screw the conductor." I hear him shout, and I'm sure he's got his hands pressed against Cherry's head like he thinks she can't hear him. It's ridiculous. We'll need to have a serious conversation about that, too.

"And at least, we won't be the parents who let their child go to school like a hobo. Like the _Pearsons_." He says their name like a disease. The _Pearsons_. Baz has officially dubbed them "The Family of Esoteric Fruitcakes". He thinks they're a cult full of hippies. I think they're a cult full of hippies - who make fantastic brownies.

They'd let their son go to school in flip-flops if it were allowed on school grounds. And if there's one thing Baz hates more than the Pearsons, it's flip-flops. And tie-dye T-shirts. And mullets. And sending our daughter to school with different colored socks.

We end up crouched in Cherry's room, Baz dressing her in something more 'socially acceptable', me behind him drying his hair with a proper towel.

I kiss the back of his neck, nuzzle the spot where his shirt meets his spine. I like that spot. It makes his lungs stumble when I touch it, makes his skin all afternoon-doze-warm.

"Good morning by the way," I say.

Cherry starts laughing. Sleepy. Then barely. Then awake. Then loud. Then bursting at the seams. It's like having someone throw firecrackers down your ear canals. _Pop_. And they bounce all the way up to your brain, going back and forth and up and down and fizz and pang and pop, pop, pop.

Baz bursts out laughing, too. And the whole world is the color of him and her and this treasure chest room.

"Morning," Cherry says, now wearing socks that match. The ones with the kitten faces stretched across the toes.

She smiles wide. When Cherry smiles, it's like her teeth are trying to devour the atmosphere. Cherry's smiles are too big for her face, too big for this three-room apartment, too big for London and England and earth.

"Morning," Baz says, standing up to help her into her trousers. He's still laughing. I rub the towel over his hair one last time and pick up one of the stray tiaras Penny gave Cherry for her birthday. I slide it onto his head.

Cherry snorts.

"Like a princess." She grins even wider, wobbling on one foot as she tries to get her other leg into her pants.

"Like a _queen_ ," Baz says. Smug. I smack the back of his head. "Ow." Then kiss it.

"Come on, we've got to go. I'll get the car ready, yeah?" I say.

Baz turns to reach for my hand, grabs a finger, rubs a knuckle, smiles, lets go. Sometimes I hate when he touches me. Because he'll have to untouch me. And that's the worst parst. The untouching. 

But it makes the ‘touching again’ better every single time.

"Can you grab my violin, love?" Baz asks.

"Where is it?"

"Somewhere in the fort."

"The space ship castle, dad." Cherry takes the tiara from Baz and places it on her own curly-haired disaster of a head. She looks like a tiny sugar plum fairy. 

"My apologies." Baz kisses her cheek. His shirt is inside-out. I won't tell him until it's too late. "The space ship castle, Simon."

"All right. Be down in five, because I'd rather be late, than really, really late."

" _Yes, dad_ ," they say. At the same time. Grinning. Screwballs. And I love them so much my chest might crack. 

 

❖

 

We end up taking the tube because we forgot we left the car at Penny's and Micah's after having spent Saturday night at their place. They announced they were going to start trying for a baby. We ended up downing half of the innards of their wine cooler because Penny said she had to gear up for nine alcohol-less months. At the end of the night, Baz couldn't stand, I couldn't tell my hands apart, and Micah thought he was a pigeon. Penelope was surprisingly sober. Even when she genuinely wants to get pissed, she ends up being the caregiver.

We're squeezed onto two seats between an elderly lady and a man the size of a bulldozer with the tiniest head I've ever seen. Like an egg sitting on a mountain of flesh-colored silly putty.

But I've got no one to whisper my mean thoughts to. Cherry's sprawled across my lap, and Baz's head is on my shoulder. They're both asleep. Two stations in, and they went out like a light.

I play with the tiara tangled into Cherry's curls, crooked, a blind spot in the middle where a plastic rhinestone had once been. I listen to the drone of the wheels on the tracks below, the little clicks and clicks, a steady rhythm. Like Baz's chest when he's barely awake.

My eyes flick up to the fluorescent reflection in the window across. Cherry and Baz and me. I realize I'm wearing my pajamas, and Baz's shirt is still inside-out. And then there's Cherry, and she's our perfect little in-between. 

I think Monday mornings are still a special kind of terrible. But the good kind. Alive. The kind that reminds me that I have this. Them. Both of them. All of them. I want to press them into my chest, hide them in my heartbeat. Like that, nobody will be able to snatch them away. They're mine. All mine.

I lean my cheek against Baz's head. He still smells like sleep. And stars. And pillow cases. Everything good in the world.

_Thank you, Thomas the Tank Engine._

 

❖ F I N ❖

**Author's Note:**

> *Baz in a banana pajama*


End file.
